Orenda Turbojet
Work on the TR.4 continued through this period, but in the summer of 1946, Avro Canada asked them to produce a new 6,500 lbf (28.9 kN) engine for their CF-100 Canuck interceptor design. The resulting TR.5 Orenda design was essentially a scaled-up Chinook, with work continuing on the latter to bring the production and test teams up to speed.
The Orenda's design was similar enough to the Chinook that prototype production was completed in less than a year, and the engine first ran in February 1949. Testing proceeded quickly at a facility outside Nobel, Ontario, formerly a munitions factory owned by C-I-L. Between the first run in February and the start of production in the late fall, the prototypes ran over 1,000 hours, a record for the era. When it entered production it was the most powerful engine in the world, a title it held until 1952. Almost 4,000 Orenda engines of various versions were built by the time the final unit was delivered to the RCAF in July 1958.
The Orenda entered production for the CF-100, which were used in Canada and the Belgian Air Force. Later versions of the Canadair Sabre also used the Orenda in place of their General Electric J47's, providing a dramatic boost in performance, holding the crown for F-86 performance for some time. The Canadair Sabre became a popular export item as well, with versions being sold to the West German, South African, Colombian and Pakistani Air Forces. For some time the USAF considered producing their own Orenda-powered version, the F-86J, although these plans were later dropped when they turned their attention to more powerful supersonic designs. Jacqueline Cochran broke the sound barrier in a borrowed example, and Boeing used a Canadair Sabre as a chase plane from 1962 through the early 1980s during development of all Boeing airliners from the 727 onward.
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